


Another Revolution

by Eglantine



Series: Joly&Bossuet&Musichetta [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, July Revolution, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3520043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eglantine/pseuds/Eglantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summertime, there's fighting in the streets, and Musichetta waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Revolution

Why should sudden silence frighten her more than the sound of the fighting beginning did three days ago? Musichetta stood, paced the room once or twice, then sat down on the sofa again. When the fighting began she’d run straight to Joly’s, knowing perfectly well she wouldn’t find him there, and she hadn’t left since. She told herself, the first day, that this was because Joly had more books than she did, and besides, the streets were hardly safe. But she could not focus on reading, and as the sounds of fighting faded away, and she peeked out the window to see others venturing out at last, she still did not leave. 

In the early evening, someone knocked softly on the door. Musichetta tore across the room to answer it, and didn’t hide her disappointment when she saw the building’s porter on the other side.

“Yes?” she asked. At least it was a distraction, she thought.

“He was out there on the barricades, wasn’t he?” the porter said. “Monsieur Joly?” 

“Who’s asking?” Musichetta asked at once, her hand flying to the doorknob to slam it shut if necessary. Plainly startled by her reaction, the porter held up a placating hand.

“No one’s asking, I’m asking. They won,” he said. 

“Oh.” It felt like all the air had rushed out of her body, taking her bones and muscles with it. She tightened her hand on the doorknob, now to help stay upright. “They—what? Who won?”

“The rebels. Haven’t you heard anything? They took the Hôtel de Ville this afternoon, and now all the ministers and things are locked up in there deciding what to do next. Lafayette is there. King Charles fled. Some king, eh?” he added, and Musichetta laughed faintly. “So he picked the right side. Monsieur Joly did.”

“So it seems. So— so there’s no more fighting?”

“Here and there, I hear,” he porter said, gesturing vaguely. “But it looks all clear from where I’m standing. I’ll know to expect him.”

“Oh… you don’t need…” But the porter, with a knowing look, had already slipped away. Musichetta ducked back inside and shut the door behind her, then leaned against it. She felt stupid now, stupid for waiting. Perhaps, she thought, she should hurry and leave before they ever knew she’d come, saunter in casually in a couple of days and inquire coolly after their health and never let them know that she’d spent three days watching out the window and trying to remember the words to prayers she hadn’t said since leaving home. 

She pulled a novel off Joly’s shelf and resumed her place on the sofa. This held her attention for about ten minutes, then she was on her feet again, rummaging through cupboards. She decided to tidy up, for lack of anything better to do.

Midway through she became suddenly aware of herself, as if she could step outside and watch this stranger called Musichetta engaged in this laughably domestic task. She knew— all her friends knew— it was a dangerous game they played with these boys. She always told herself that, if she was careful, it was alright if she fell a little bit in love, as long as it really was just a little. 

Cleaning was more than a little, maybe. 

She stopped. 

(She thought all of a sudden the girl they’d all called Ancolie, who worked in a hat shop with Bahorel’s mistress Medora, whom none of them had seen in weeks and finally just the other day Medora told them why: that she’d found herself with child, and she had gone to the student she was living with, a law student, and told him— thinking, of course, thinking he would marry her, because he loved her, didn’t he. And he was no cad, this Medora assured them, he gave her money, money to get home to Provence and more besides, and there she’d gone and he had not followed. Irma Boissy, who had listened to this story at Musichetta’s side, shook her head with pity and disdain and pulled them both close and said to them, “Don’t let such a thing happen to you. You come to me, and I can tell you where to go.”)

She left. 

(She took the novel she’d started with her.)

*

She waited a day, one day. At first she told herself three but by the end of the first she could stand it no longer and she found herself, almost against her will, walking across the river and towards the Latin Quarter. Everything was confused—the King had fled, but was still the King? Or would he abdicate, and if who, in whose favor? All anyone seemed to know was that the Duke of Orléans was in charge, at least for now. So did that mean they had won after all, she wondered? Or had there been a point in the fighting perhaps when the two extremes had fallen—those in favor of King Charles, those opposed to any king at all— leaving only Orléans and his supporters in the middle? 

The porter fixed her with a knowing smirk when he spotted her. 

“Are they in? Both of them?” she asked, trying not to sound as breathlessly nervous as she felt.

“Yes,” he said. “I didn’t realize you’d left.”

“Oh, I had things to do,” she said with an attempt at airiness. Maybe she should leave again, she thought, give it a few more days now that she knew they were alive. “May I go up?”

“Go on, then,” he said, stepping aside, not quite far enough, so that she had to brush against him to pass by. She was used to this, used to these things. When she would write home, she told her mother, all the men in Paris are so gallant, such gentlemen; this was only one of the lies she told. 

She moved quickly up the stairs and slowly down the corridor, hesitating outside the door before she knocked tentatively. When there was no response she knocked louder, then louder still, then finally took out her key and eased the door open. 

They were in: the dusty boots discarded by the door made this clear, and a coat thrown over the back of the sofa. There was a shirt tossed next to it, and Musichetta noted with an unexpected calm that it was quite badly stained with blood. A bowl of dirty water sat on the floor, some messily-trimmed bandages beside it. 

She was moving closer to see whose shirt it was (this could be ascertained by the state of the cuffs and elbows: Lesgle’s, frayed; Joly’s, tidy) when Joly himself suddenly appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. He seemed to have fallen asleep in his clothes, and he paused for a moment to lean against the doorway as he rubbed blearily at his eyes, his spectacles pushed up onto his forehead. Then he lowered them again and his gaze fell on Musichetta. 

“Oh,” he said. It was more a breath than a sound, more a sound than a word, and Musichetta didn’t know what it meant except that it seemed to be the sound of what she felt. He rushed towards her and pulled her close before she could do anything but fall into him, bury her face in his shirt, which stank of sweat and gunpowder. She felt him lean his cheek against her head. 

“Oh, I hoped you’d be here,” he said, the words muffled against her curls. “I got in bed and it smelled like you and all I wanted was for you to be here.” 

She couldn’t bring herself to say that it was because she had been there, because she had been there for three days and then she had run away. 

“Are you crying?” he asked suddenly, pulling away. She shook her head, as if it were somehow possible to deny the tears spilling silently down her cheeks. She covered her mouth and shook her head, and he pulled her close again so that she could hide her face against his chest once more. 

“There’s no need to cry,” he said. “We’re quite alright. We’ve been asleep since we got back here. Three days on paving stones, you know, it’s not very restful…”

“Whose blood--?”

“Bossuet’s, but— it’s not as bad as it looks. More mess than damage.”

She nodded. She took a deep breath, then another, and then felt steady enough to pull away. Joly looked at her and smiled. 

“I rubbed some dirt off on you, I think.” He reached forward and scrubbed his thumb across her cheek. He let his hand linger there. He brushed a stray curl away. “You look so sad.” 

“No, not at all. I just… you look tired. And…”

“I am, I guess.” A small pause, then he prompted, “And?”

“I’m sorry that I— I’m sorry, I was so silly, to cry like that.” She laughed. She felt almost like herself now, or a version of herself. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen me cry before. You handled it admirably, most men don’t know what to do.” 

“Do they not? I apologize for my failure to keep to type. I shall pin it on exhaustion.” 

“Well, as for that,” Musichetta said. “I’ll go out and find something to eat, shall I? And I shall tell the porter to bring some water so you may wash. You must eat something,” she said when Joly looked poised to protest. “I’m sure you’ve had nothing for days. I’ll only be a moment.”

“Alright,” he said. “You’ll know where to find us.” 

She nodded and turned for the door, but paused with her hand on the knob.

“I was so worried,” she said to the floor, then pushed the door open and stepped out before Joly could respond.

*

She found Joly asleep on the sofa when she returned, upright but slumped sideways, his spectacles slid all the way down his nose and his chin propped in his hand. Lesgle sat on the other end of the sofa, regarding Joly with his habitual amused expression. Confirmed owner of the bloodied shirt flung over the back of the sofa, it seemed he had not troubled himself to find a clean one yet. His upper arm—the left—was bandaged and he had a cut down the side of his face, from his right temple to nearly to his chin. None of this seemed to trouble him, but with Lesgle of course it was always hard to tell.

“I can’t decide if I should tip him over,” Lesgle said by way of greeting. “So that he’s lying down, you know. But I don’t want to wake him.” 

She considered this situation, then made her way quietly over to the sofa and sat down in the middle (Lesgle did not have to shift over at all, for it seemed this was the amount of space— the size of her, skirts included— that they now instinctively left). She slipped an arm around Joly’s waist and tugged him gently; he flopped unprotestingly onto her, curling his long limbs, catlike, his head resting in her lap. Lesgle offered a hand, and Musichetta took it, twining her fingers into his. 

“I can sleep anywhere, any time, so I managed to sneak quite a bit of sleep in corners here and there,” he said. “But you know how Joly gets when he has something on his mind.” 

“What happened to your arm?” she asked. “And your face?” 

“My face has always looked this way,” he said, mock-affronted. She rolled her eyes and he grinned. “This was friendly fire, as it happens. A very kind citizen was tossing down some furniture to contribute to the barricade and I was struck by a chair.” 

She looked at him. “You’re joking.”

“I am not.” 

She dropped her head into her hands, shoulders shaking as she tried to keep her laughter quiet so as not to wake Joly. 

“The arm was perfectly ordinary,” he said. “A soldier hitting his mark. Well, actually missing his mark, probably. Upon reflection, he probably intended to kill me.” 

“Don’t say that,” she said at once. “I know it’s perfectly true, but— just don’t say it, please. I don’t like to think…”

“Neither do I, I assure you,” Lesgle replied. This was the game with Lesgle, this was what she liked about him (among other things)— you could be sure, with him, the conversation would always skim along the surface, would never accidentally brush against something unpleasant or uncomfortable, because if it began to, he would always push it cheerfully away. 

“And how have you spent the last three days, Mademoiselle Musichetta?” Lesgle asked. 

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know,” she said. “I took some much-needed time to myself.”

“By yourself?” Lesgle echoed with exaggerated incredulity. “Paris practically in flames, and you by yourself? I cannot believe it. You are always in society, your tireless energy for other people is why we are so well-suited.” 

“Is _that_ why,” she laughed. “Then I shall keep it up, just for you. I shall save up all my resting for one great spree someday after you go.” 

“Go?” he echoed. “And where are you imagining we will go?” 

She lowered her eyes. She hadn’t meant to say it— or she had, maybe, maybe hoping that saying it would keep it from rattling around in her head, echoing against all of her other thoughts. 

“Of course you will leave someday,” she said, striving to keep her tone light. “I’m not silly enough to think otherwise. I have been with other students before you two, you know.” 

“Yes, I distinctly remember one of them drunkenly shouting at Joly one night— but you have it all wrong, you know,” he said. “At risk of sounding insufferably pleased with myself, I venture we may not be entirely like other students you have known.”

“You think in nearly two years I haven’t noticed that?” 

“But I don’t mean just the hypochondria and magnets and preposterously poor luck. Take the past few days as a better illustration of my point. We weren’t just out there for a lark, or because our friends were, though I expect some think that might be the reason. But we do in fact believe in— well, equality.” 

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.” 

“What he’s saying,” Joly piped up suddenly, “is that it will certainly be you who leaves us.” 

Musichetta looked down at him in surprise. “How long have you been awake?” 

“I wasn’t asleep,” he insisted. Lesgle laughed. “Did you bring back food?”

“And wine.”

“Ah, you’re a goddess.”

“We will have to go back, of course,” Lesgle said. Joly reluctantly pushed himself back upright. “It could fall any way yet, Enjolras will want us.” 

“There’s nothing we can hope to do,” Joly protested. “Surely he won’t—”

“You know he will,” Lesgle cut in. Joly lowered his eyes.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “And if there’s anything to be done, we must be there to try and do it.” This last he addressed to Musichetta— by way of explanation, she supposed, though she needed none. But both of them were looking to her anyway, half-guilty half-expectant, and she realized they were expecting her to protest.

“Well, really,” she said. “God took seven days to make the world, certainly you cannot remake it in only three.” 

Struck, as they sometimes were, by the same thought in the same moment, Musichetta found herself kissed on both cheeks, and couldn’t help but laugh. Part of her, speaking in Irma’s voice, cautioned that she should not allow herself to be reassured, that words and promises were nothing until they were put to the test. But Lesgle laughed louder than that voice could speak, and Joly’s smile was sweeter than the safety it promised. 

“Is it safe out there now?” she asked. “Will you be safe?” 

“Oh, things have quieted down,” Lesgle said.

“And if not—”

“Then it’s worth the risk,” Joly said.

She said, “I know it.”


End file.
